Wedgwood.-A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. BY HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, M.A., late Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. Vol. I. (A to D), 8vo., pp. xxiv. and 508, cloth, 148. Vol. II. (E to P), 8vo., pp. 578, cloth, 148. Vol. III., Part I. (Q to Sy), 8vo., pp. 366, 10s. 6d. Vol. III., Part II., completing the work, in the press. "Dictionaries are a class of books not usually esteemed light reading; but no intelligent man were to be pitied who should find himself shut up on a rainy day in a lonely house in the dreariest part of Salisbury Plain, with no other means of recreation than that which Mr. Wedgwood's Dictionary of Etymology could afford him. He would read it through from cover to cover at a sitting, and only regret that he had not the second volume to begin upon forthwith. It is a very able book, of great research, full of delightful surprises, a repertory of the fairy tales of linguistic science."-Spectator. Wheeler.-THE HISTORY OF INDIA. By J. TALBOYS WHEELER, Assistant Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department; Secretary to the Indian Record Commission; Author of "The Geography of Herodotus," etc.. Vol. I. containing the Vedic Period and the Maha Bhárata. With a Map of Ancient India to illustrate the Mahá Bhárata. Svo. pp. 650, cloth, price 18s. The second Volume, containing the "Ramayana," will be published in October. Whitney.-LANGUAGE AND THE Study of Language. A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science. By WILLIAM D. WHITNEY, Professor of Sanskrit in Yale College, New Haven. Crown 8vo. cloth. [In the press. Williams.-FIRST LESSONS IN THE MAORI LANGUAGE, with a Short Vocabulary. By W. L. WILLIAMS, B.A. Square 8vo., pp. 80, cloth. London, 1862. 3s. 6d. Williams.-A DICTIONARY, ENGLISH AND SANSCRIT. By MONIER WILLIAMS, M.A. Published under the patronage of the Honourable East India Company. 4to. pp. xii. 862, cloth. London, 1855. £3 38. Wilson.-Works by the late HORACE H. WILSON, M.A., F.R.S., Member of the Royal Asiatic Societies of Calcutta and Paris, and of the Oriental Society of Germany, etc., and Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford. Vols. I. and II. Also under this title, ESSAYS AND LECTURES, chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus. By the late H. H. WILSON, M.A., F.R.S., etc. Collected and Edited by Dr. REINHOLD ROST. In 2 vols. 8vo., cloth. 218. Wilson.-The Works of the late HORACE H. WILSON. Vols. III., IV., and V., containing Essays on Oriental Literature. Edited by Dr. REINHOLD ROST, Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 3 vols, 8vo., cloth. 36s. Wilson.-THE WORKS OF THE LATE HORACE HAYMAN WILSON. Vols. VI. and VII., being the two first Volumes of the Vishnu Purana. Edited by Dr. F. E. HALL. 8vo. cloth. 21s. Wilson.-ESSAYS ON ORIENTAL LITERATURE. By the late H. H. WILSON. Edited by Dr. REINHOLD ROST, Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 3 vols. 8vo., cloth. 368. Wilson.-ESSAYS AND LECTURES, chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus. By the late H. H. WILSON, M.A., F.R.S., etc. Collected and Edited by Dr. REINHOLD ROST. 2 vols. 8vo. cloth. 218. Wilson.-THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CULTIVATION OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. A Lecture delivered at the Meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society. By the Director, Professor H. H. WILSON. 8vo., pp. 26, sewed. London, 1852. 6d. Wilson.-SELECT SPECIMENS OF THE THEATRE OF THE HINDUS. Trans lated from the Original Sanskrit. By HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, M.A., F.R.S. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. lxx. and 384, 415, cloth. 158. CONTENTS. Vol. I.-Preface-Treatise on the Dramatic System of the Hindus-Dramas translated from the Wise.-COMMENTARY ON THE HINDU SYSTEM OF MEDICINE. By T. A. THE SACRED HYMNS OF THE BRAHMANS AS PRESERVED TO US IN THE OLDEST COLLECTION OF RELIGIOUS POETRY, THE RIG-VEDA-SANHITA, TRANSLATED AND EXPLAINED, BY MAX MÜLLER, M.A., TAYLORIAN PROFESSOR OF MODERN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY AFTER twenty years spent in collecting and publishing the text of the Rig-Veda with the voluminous Commentary of Sâyana, I intend to lay before the public my translation of some of the hymns contained in that collection of primeval poetry. I cannot promise a translation of all the hymns, for the simple reason that, notwithstanding Sâyana's traditional explanations of every word, and in spite of every effort to decipher the original text, either by an intercomparison of all passages in which the same word occurs, or by etymological analysis, or by consulting the vocabulary and grammar of cognate languages, there remain large portions of the Rig-Veda which, as yet, yield no intelligible sense. is very easy, no doubt, to translate these obscurer portions according to Sâyana's traditional interpretation, but the It i impossibility of adopting this alternative may be judged by the fact that even the late Professor Wilson, who undertook to give a literal rendering of Sâyana's interpretation of the Rig-Veda, found himself obliged, by the rules of common sense and by the exigencies of the English language, to desert, not unfrequently, that venerable guide. I need hardly repeat what I have so often said, that it would be reckless to translate a single line of the Rig-Veda without having carefully examined Sâyana's invaluable commentary and other native authorities, such as the Brâhmaņas, the Aranyakas, the Prâtisâkhyas, Yâska's Nirukta, Śaunaka's Brihaddevatâ, the Sûtras, the Anukramaņîs, and many other works on grammar, metre, nay, even on law and philosophy, from which we may gather how the most learned among the Brahmans understood their own sacred writings. But it would be equally reckless not to look beyond. A long controversy has been carried on, during the last twenty years, whether we, the scholars of Europe, have a right to criticise the traditional interpretation of the sacred writings of the Brahmans. I think we have not only the right to do so, but that it is the duty of every scholar never to allow himself to be guided by tradition, unless that tradition has first been submitted to the same critical tests which are applied to the suggestions of his own private judgment. A translator must, before all things, be a "sceptic," a man who looks about, and who chooses that for which he is able to make himself honestly responsible, whether it be suggested to him, in the first instance, by the most authoritative tradition or by the merest random guess. I offer my translation of such hymns as I can, to a certain extent, understand and explain, as a humble contribution to This subject and the principles by which I shall be guided in my translation of the Rig-Veda have been discussed in an article lately published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, vol. ii., part 2, "The Hymns of the Gaupayanas and the Legend of King Asamâti.” The same volume contains two valuable articles on the same subject by Mr. J. Muir, D.C.L. wards a future translation of the whole of the Rig-Veda. There are many scholars in England, Germany, France, and India who now devote their energies to the deciphering of Vedic words and Vedic thoughts; in fact, there are few Sanskrit scholars at present who have not made the Veda the principal subject of their studies. With every year, with every month, new advances are made, and words and thoughts, which but lately seemed utterly unintelligible, receive an unexpected light from the ingenuity of European students. Fifty years hence I hope that my own translation may be antiquated and forgotten. No one can be more conscious of its shortcomings than I am. All I hope is that it may serve as a step leading upwards to a higher, clearer, truer point of view, from which those who come after us may gain a real insight into the thoughts, the fears, the hopes, the doubts, the faith of the true ancestors of our race;-of those whose language still lives in our own language, and whose earliest poetical compositions have been preserved to us for more than three thousand years, in the most surprising, and, to my mind, the most significant manner. OXFORD, January, 1867. MAX MÜLLER. The present publication is intended to form eight volumes, of about twenty-five sheets each, containing an English translation, notes, and explanatory essays. A transliterated text (in the original Pada form) will be added in order to obviate the necessity of quoting a whole passage again and again in the various notes on the same verse. The first volume will be published as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers has been obtained. Not more than two volumes to be published in each year. Terms of Subscription before publication, 10s. 6d. per volume-the price to Non-subscribers after publication will be 12s. 6d. per volume. TRÜBNER & Co., 60, Paternoster Row, London. |